


to sing my own dirge

by TheSleepingKnight



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Gen, Heavy Angst, Introspection, One-Shot, Post-GM, Pre-Ward, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSleepingKnight/pseuds/TheSleepingKnight
Summary: After the world ends, Lisa finds herself alone.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	to sing my own dirge

Lisa twirls the gun in her hand. Its weight is nicely solid, comforting in a paradoxical way. It’s a dark matte black, sleek and dangerous looking… which is the whole point, really. 

Her fan circles lazily overhead. Pale sunlight streams in through the window, setting the dancing motes of dust aglow as they drift through the air. The papers scattered all over her beaten and bruised desk have a similar luminescence. It’s as if God is shining a spotlight, just for her, just for this quiet moment in the long story of life. The script is calling for a soliloquy, but she doesn’t have any more words to give. She’s always been Cassandra. The truth no one wanted to hear, the prophecy no one would believe. What worth was knowledge when other people didn’t _listen?_ Children, the lot of them, screaming and whining and _complaining_ all the time about things that didn’t even matter. The world is a mess and she’s holding it together by the tips of her fingers. Good lord, she’s tired. She wants to fade into the soft sunbeam and drift right up to the pearly gates, but Lisa knows that when death comes knocking, she won’t be flying. 

She’ll be falling. 

She swivels her chair to face the back wall, staring at the cracking wall paper as if it held the secrets of the universe. Her eyes drift once more to the window, staring at the world outside, bright and colorful, a stark contrast to the dark wooden floors that are darkened further by stains she hasn’t gotten around to cleaning up yet. Her eyes drift further up to the sun, blazing bright, and the pain comes but she endures. She always endures. Perhaps if she stares long enough, she’ll see the face of God. Like Saul, struck down on the road by brilliant rays of light, made blind so that he could spread the good news. Who’s prophet would she be?

The answer comes immediately. She was, and always would be, _hers_. She couldn’t escape that fact, no matter how hard she tried. And oh, how she had tried. 

She could never picture herself growing old and getting married. Domesticity never had any real appeal to her for a variety of reasons. She supposes that’s why it was so easy to become a cape. Living on the edge was the only way she could feel alive— she lived for the thrill of that _rush,_ the heart-pounding, blood pumping song of victory singing through her body. She craved it. She needed it. It was the only thing keeping moments like _this_ away, where everything catches up to her like a gunshot (two gunshots, bang bang, you’re _dead,)_ and she can’t _breathe._ So she found death and flirted with it, dallied and danced and slipped away at the last moment. What cape _didn’t?_ Which one didn’t put on a mask, didn’t hide the damage and went out to into that good night to find something to bring them back to life? Taylor had gone looking for a monster, her first night out, so that she could die in its arms and find absolution. (She died alone. Taylor had died alone, just like Reggie. She had failed again.) She closes her eyes and she sees Reggie’s face mixed with Taylor’s and Alec’s and Grue’s, blending and shifting into a surrealist painting named both _guilt_ and _loss._

Christ, what a mess. What a _mess._ (the world, or her? Both.) 

She comes back to the gun. 

She doesn’t want to die. Not really. She just doesn’t want to feel like she’s drowning underneath the weight of everything anymore. Of her responsibilities, her regrets, her secrets. Was that how Reggie felt? How Taylor felt, when she put on the costume? For once, her power stays silent. 

She sets down the gun on her desk. Ugh. This is all so… pointless. She has— she has things to _do._ Always things to do. Calls to make, people to sneer at, idiots to manage. 

And besides. It wasn’t like it would _work,_ anyway. _She_ wouldn’t allow it. 

Lisa turns to the final piece of the small, tiny room. A small mirror, dirty from age and neglect. She’d found it among all the rubble of...well, everything, and decided to keep it. It reminded her of their old base, back in Brockton, when she and Taylor were young idiots and she could forget what she was. Taylor had once asked her why she wasn’t fond of mirrors. She had lied, like she always lied. 

Lisa walks over to the mirror and remembers her mother’s— her _real_ mother’s— words.

_On the outside, you’ll be beautiful._

_And on the inside, you’ll be mine._

Lisa stares into the mirror and sees the pale, almost translucent skin. She sees the wispy, platinum white hair. She sees the silver eyes, filled corner to corner. And most of all, she sees six horrible wings bursting from her back, asymmetrical and pristine, like they were carved from diamonds. 

All this time. All these years, and she still remembered what her mother had said upon her “birth.” 

_My little angel. You’ll walk among them. You’ll hate them and love them, and when you turn old and grey, I’ll pluck the knowledge out of your little skull and use it to make them suffer._

_Be a good daughter. Teach me how to break someone’s heart._

And so she did. She learned how to use words to rip someone apart, to break them down, to cause them to doubt, to fear, to hate. 

And then, just once in her fucking life, she’d tried to use her power to heal someone. To try and save them. To help them. To help _her._

And then Taylor got shot. She got shot and now Lisa was alone with her reflection all over again. Alone, alone, alone. Just her and the monster in the mirror. And finally, she understood. That was the _point._ Heartbreak. She knew what it felt like, how it burned and chipped away at her soul— and now, her mother did too. 

And Lisa is alone again.

She takes in a deep shuddering breath and turns away from her reflection. 

She doesn’t have time for this. She’s got work to do. 

* * *

_One thing left. I want to sing my own dirge. I pray to the sun, to this last minute of life: let my enemies pay with blood for what they did to me._ -Cassandra, _Agamemnon._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> To Alice, one of the most amazing members of this community and a very dear friend.


End file.
